ravells Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Is there a way to merge layers in AD? I can't find one. Many thanks! Ravi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 28, 2016 Staff Share Posted July 28, 2016 Hello Ravi, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) Group the layers you want to "merge", then right click the group on the Layers panel and select Rasterise (this will create a raster layer obviously). Let me know if that was what you were looking for. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 You can obviously select multiple objects on the Layers tab and drag them to another layer, but I can't find a 'Merge Layers' command as such. Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted July 28, 2016 Staff Share Posted July 28, 2016 There's no merge commands in Designer. Only in Photo. Merge is an operation associated with raster layers. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Merge is an operation associated with raster layers. That seems to be the case in Affinity Designer, but it doesn't need to be! Suppose you've drawn a map with lakes on one layer and rivers on another: if we had a 'Merge Layers' command we could easily combine the contents of those two layers to create a 'Lakes & Rivers' layer, but as things stand we have to move all the objects from one layer to the other and then delete the empty layer. Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravells Posted July 28, 2016 Author Share Posted July 28, 2016 Thanks for the answers, everyone! Perhaps it might be clearer if I put my question into a context. I'm a long time Drawplus user (waves to Alfred - if it's the same Alfred in the Drawplus forums), I downloaded and installed AD for windows today (very excited). As a DP user the tools are very familiar and although the interface is a little different, it's pretty easy to get used to (more like PS which I also use). So I was playing with AD just to see if I could get similar outcomes as I did in DP. Where I got stuck was when I tried drawing a bunch of overlapping, black stroked but unfilled rectangles and I wanted to flood fill the overlaps in different colours. In DP you could do this in a number of ways, for example using the flood fill tool. Here is the problem I ran into when I tried this in AD, As I drew the rectangles in Vector Personna, it created a new layer for each of them. So when I switched to Pixel Personna to carry out the flood fill of the overlapping areas, I found I couldn't put the rectangles on the same layer. Dragging and dropping them resulted in them being cropped to the top rectangle in the group (which I know is intentional). So I guess my question is how do I draw multiple overlapping rectangles and fill the overlaps in differing colours? Rasterising the layers doesn't seem to help. Many thanks! Still exploring! Ravi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VIPStephan Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 You can use boolean operations to split two vector paths at an intersecting point to create separate paths which you can fill at will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravells Posted July 28, 2016 Author Share Posted July 28, 2016 Thanks Stephan, that worked. From a workflow point of view, I was just hoping to find a way to rasterise the rectangles and contiguously flood fill the overlaps which would be much faster. I can't believe that there isn't a way to do this! I'm positive I must be missing something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Thanks for the answers, everyone! Perhaps it might be clearer if I put my question into a context. I'm a long time Drawplus user (waves to Alfred - if it's the same Alfred in the Drawplus forums), I downloaded and installed AD for windows today (very excited). As a DP user the tools are very familiar and although the interface is a little different, it's pretty easy to get used to (more like PS which I also use). I confess, Ravi: I'm "the same Alfred"! I knew that 'Ravi/ravells' was you, hence my reference to map-making. ;) So I was playing with AD just to see if I could get similar outcomes as I did in DP. Where I got stuck was when I tried drawing a bunch of overlapping, black stroked but unfilled rectangles and I wanted to flood fill the overlaps in different colours. In DP you could do this in a number of ways, for example using the flood fill tool. AD doesn't yet have an equivalent to the Flood Tool that we finally got in the last ever version of DP, so it seems that 'Divide' (a nice command which is sadly missing from DP) is the way to go. I found I couldn't put the rectangles on the same layer. Dragging and dropping them resulted in them being cropped to the top rectangle in the group (which I know is intentional). It depends where you drop. If you have two overlapping objects and you drag the bottom one up on the Layers panel, dropping it when you see a long horizontal blue rectangle will cause it to be clipped to the upper object. Dropping it on the thumbnail of the upper object (when you'll see a short vertical blue rectangle) will cause the upper object to be cropped to the shape that you dropped on it. And, of course, if you drag up far enough you'll just change the stacking order. Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravells Posted July 28, 2016 Author Share Posted July 28, 2016 Ah so it IS you! And there I was thinking that the mapping reference was a co-incidence! I hadn't noticed the Divide tool - very cool! The way layers work in AD takes some getting used to! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MattP Posted July 28, 2016 Staff Share Posted July 28, 2016 Hi ravells, I also remember your maps - they were stunning! :) Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravells Posted July 29, 2016 Author Share Posted July 29, 2016 Hi Matt!! Congratulations on your new 'baby'! I read your interview in Affinity magazine with much interest and am so happy that there is a lot more to come for AD. It must be so much nicer for you making the software from the ground up rather than having to deal with legacy code! You must be getting out of bed with a spring in your step these days!!And...THANK YOU for the trapezoid and segment quickshapes! I'm just about to hop over to the suggestions forum to suggest the ability to bevel corners (just to add your enormous to do list!). All the best and Well Done to you and the team at Serif! best Ravs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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